TI-99 Home Computer Timeline

Bill Gaskill

part 1 of 4

1993 marks the 10th anniversary of the decision by Texas Instruments to
abandon the Home Computer. I have compiled the information in this
timeline not in celebration of TI's decision to orphan the 99/4A, but
rather to honor the community that remains ten years after TI's
decision. I hope you enjoy the reading.

THE BIRTH OF THE MICROCOMPUTER INDUSTRY

1947: Bell Labs engineers John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William
Shockley invent the transistor, which paves the way for the creation of
smaller computers.

1955: IBM becomes the first computer manufacturer to offer plug-in
peripherals for their computers. Although the computers are of the
mainframe type, the concept will catch on and become an integral part
of microcomputer technology.

1959: Texas Instruments releases the first integrated circuit after its
engineers figure out how to put more than one transistor on the same
material and connect them without wires.

1964: John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz develop the BASIC programming
language at Dartmouth College. BASIC will become a mainstay in the
microcomputer world.

1969: Intel, then a one-year old company, releases a 1K-bit RAM chip,
which is the largest amount of RAM ever put on an integrated circuit up
to that time.

1972: Intel introduces the 8008 chip in April 1972. It becomes the
first 8-bit microprocessor to hit the market.

- Nolan Bushnell founds Atari and ships the Pong game.

1973: The first "mini" floppy disk is introduced.

1974: Intel introduces the 8080 chip in April 1974. The 8080 is the
first microprocessor capable of addressing 64K bytes of memory.

-Texas Instruments releases the TMS 1000 4-bit chip. It becomes an
immediate success as over 100 million are sold for use in video games,
microwave ovens, calculators and other electronics products.

- In an article appearing in the July 1974 issue of Radio Electronics,
author Jonathan Titus tells readers how to build the Mark 8 "personal
minicomputer."

- Motorola begins work on the M6800 chip, designed by Chuck Peddle.
Peddle would later leave Motorola to join MOS Technology, the creators
of the 6502 chip. Peddle ultimately became Commodore's Systems Division
Director, responsible for the release of the PET 2001 in October 1977,
after Commodore acquired MOS Technology in order to have its own chip
source.

- Naval Post-graduate School instructor Gary Kildall creates a new
operating system for Intel's 8080 microprocessor called CP/M, an
acronym for Control Program for Microcomputers. It sells for $70.

- Creative Computing magazine is founded by David H. Ahl in Morristown,
New Jersey.

1975: Texas Instruments introduces the TMS 9900 microprocessor, the
first 16-bit chip on the market, but it does not sell.

- Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems, a company founded by Ed
Roberts as a vehicle for supporting his experiments in electronics,
introduces the MITS Altair 8800 microcomputer in January. MITS becomes
the first company or corporate venture into microcomputers for sale to
the general public and the Altair becomes the first microcomputer to
have software written for it by third-party programmers. Its open bus
architecture also allows people to begin making hardware peripherals,
making it the first microcomputer to also have third-party hardware
add-ons created for it. The whole Altair kit, including the 8080
processor, motherboard, power supply, and 256 bytes of memory sold for
$395.

- MOS Technology introduces the 6501 microprocessor, a short-lived
predecessor to the famous 6502 that would power the Apple, Atari and
Commodore machines from their introduction to their obscelescence.

- Byte Magazine publishes its first issue in September.

- Bill Godbout and George Morrow (who would later build the Morrow
Computer) build the first 16-bit computer with RAM and a built-in
cassette interface. An advertisement for the unnamed computer appears
in the first issue of Byte Magazine, but not one of the computers is
sold.

1976: Zilog, a computer chip company which is founded by former Intel
employee Federico Faggin, introduces the Z80 microprocessor.

- Shugart introduces a 5 1/4" floppy disk drive in December that sells
for the unheard of price of $390. It is housed in a cast aluminum case.
In 1979 the company will enter into an agreement with Matsushita of
Japan to produce the now familiar sheet metal enclosed case that would
retail for $125 and sell for $50 in OEM quantities. This is the same
disk drive that Texas Instruments would sell to 99ers for almost $500
in 1979-83.

- Apple Computer Inc. is formed in April by Steve Jobs and Steve
Wozniak.

- Texas Instruments makes the decision to produce a personal computer
built around its unpopular TMS 9900 microprocessor. This is Mistake #1
according to Joseph Nocera, in his "Death of a Computer" article.

1977: The Radio Shack Division of Tandy Corporation and Commodore
Business Machines join the new microcomputer market with introductions
of the TRS-80 and PET 2001 (Personal Electronic Terminal) respectively.
The TRS-80 is announced in August and the PET in October.

- Computer Shack, later known as Computerland, opens its first store in
February.

- Ohio Scientific Instruments offers the first microcomputer with
Microsoft BASIC in ROM.

- Axiom Corporation of Glendale, California enters the microcomputer
printer market with the first low-cost electrosensitive line printer in
the industry.

- The research and development process for TI's planned personal
computer is in full swing and a corporate decision is made to assign
the task of creating the computer to the Consumer Products Group which
makes watches and hand held calculators at TI. Chief Operating Officer
J. Fred Bucy decides to move the Consumer Products Group from Dallas to
Lubbock, Texas, which is only 29 miles from his home town of Tahoca.
This is Mistake #2 according to Joseph Nocera.

1978: The Plato computer aided instruction system is developed at the
University of Illinois. Control Data Corporation would license these
applications to Texas Instruments late in 1983, but by then, the fate
of the Home Computer was already sealed.

- Machine and operating system independent UCSD Pascal is released by
the Regents of the University of California at San Diego for $200.

- In March, Texas Instruments begins trying to recruit personal
computer specialists by running full page ads entitled "Your Experience
with personal computers is going to open an unlimited career at TI." in
trade publications. The ads seek qualified applicants for Personal
Computer Product Marketing Managers, Systems Programmers, Digital
Design Engineers, Product Design Engineers, Application Software
Specialists and Marketing Support Engineers. The recruitment efforts
are largely unsuccessful when potential applicants discover the job is
in Lubbock, Texas rather than close to the center of the microcomputer
industry, which is northern California's Silicon Valley, situated only
an hour's drive from San Francisco.

- In April, Texas Instruments releases a recreational Solid State
Software Leisure Library module for the TI58 and 59 programmable
calculators, coining and trademarking the term Solid State Software.

- Intel introduces the 8086 microprocessor.

- In August MICROpro releases Seymour Rubenstein's Word-Master word
processor, which is the predecessor to WordStar.

- Illinois residents Ward Christensen and Randy Suess create the first
microcomputer bulletin board system, conceived, designed, built,
programmed, tested and installed in the 30 day period between January
16th and February 16th 1978.

- The $895 Exidy Sorcerer is released in October by Exidy Computers of
Sunnyvale, California. The machine sports 8K RAM, a 64 column by 30 row
screen and the ability to use plug-in modules which are the size of
8-track tapes. The Sorcerer appears to be the first "Home Computer" to
support ROM cartridge use.

- In December Axiom Corporation introduces the EX-801 printer and
EX-820 printer/plotter for $495 and $795 respectively. Both have
available interfaces for the Apple II, TRS-80, PET and Exidy personal
computers.

- Epson introduces the MX-80 dot matrix printer, shocking the industry
with its low price and high performance.

- Over 14 million microprocessors are manufactured by year's end, with
the 8-bit 6502 chip and TI's 4-bit TMS 1000 chip leading the pack.

JAN 1979: Double sided disk drives are announced but few are available
as manufacturers run into difficulty gearing up for production.

FEB 1979: Rumors begin to fly about TI's new personal computer, despite
the fact that it has not been formally announced. The rumors say the
computer will have 40K of ROM, it will generate 20 lines of 40
characters on a standard television, have provisions for accommodating
video disk players and video tape recorders, and it will have support
for sophisticated sound production.

- Atari enters the personal computer market in February by announcing
the 400 and 800 models. The 400 is a non-expandable 8K computer with a
membrane keyboard, a single cartridge slot and a cassette port. It will
sell for $500. The 800 is an 8K computer expandable to 48K. It comes
with a cassette recorder, a full keyboard, 8K BASIC built in and high
resolution graphics capabilities. It will sell for $1000. Neither
machine appears until August, and then only in limited quantities.

MAR 1979: The FCC begins regulating microcomputers that employ radio
frequency modulators. Their action is spurred by the rash of previous
complaints received when Citizen Band radios created havoc for TV
viewers.

- Texas Instruments releases the new Speak and Spell learning aid for
children. It is based on the TMS 1000 chip and two 128K DRAM chips,
each with the ability to store over 100 seconds of speech.

APR 1979: McGraw-Hill buys Byte and onComputing magazines.

- Tandy begins selling their TRS line of personal computers through
their own stores. Several other makers of personal computers withdraw
their products from department store shelves after meeting with poor
sales and low product acceptance.

- Despite early failure by U.S. department stores to move personal
computers, department stores in Europe begin to surface as the major
source of sales for Commodore's PET and Radio Shack's TRS-80.

- The CompuServe on-line information service is founded.

MAY 1979: Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston release their new Visicalc
spreadsheet, written for the Apple II computer.

JUN 1979: Texas Instruments announces the TI-99/4 Home Computer at the
Consumer Electronics Show in June at a retail price of $1150 with a 13"
color monitor. It will not appear in any quantity until almost a year
later however, and then it will prove to be a flop in the market
place.

Software titles announced as being available for the new Home Computer
include: Beginning Grammar, Demonstration, Diagnostic, Early Learning
Fun, Early Reading, Football, Home Financial Decisions, Household
Budget Management, Investment Analysis, Number Magic, Personal Record
Keeping, Physical Fitness, Speech Construction, Tax/Investment Record
Keeping, Video Chess, and Video Graphs.

Peripherals announced as being available are a Speech Synthesizer, an
RS232 interface, joysticks, disk storage and a thermal printer. No
memory expansion is available. The price for the console/monitor bundle
is $1150 with the Solid State Software command modules listed running
anywhere from $19.95 to $69.95 in price.

Actual release dates on several of the announced products would vary
from the June 1979 release information.

- Wayne Ratliff develops the Vulcan Data Base at the Jet Propulsion
Labs in Pasadena, California. Ashton-Tate later picks up the program
and markets it as dBase II.

- Word of a Japanese invasion into the personal computer market hits
the media, much like the never-to-appear MSX invasion of the mid-80's,
after Nippon Electric Corporation (NEC) enters the market with their
Astra series of 16-bit systems.

AUG 1979: TI releases a $250 hand held language translater that
features speech, which means translated words are not only displayed,
but are also spoken. The unit will have $50 plug-in modules available
for English, Spanish, French, German, Russian, Chinese and Japanese.
Each module displays 1000 words in the resident language, 500 of which
can be spoken by the speech synthesizer.

SEP 1979: New England Electronics proudly announces that it has been
selected to be an authorized distributor of the "revolutionary TI-99/4
Personal/Educational Computer!"

- Computerland begins advertising the 99/4 also, calling it "The
Remarkable Home Computer". They also carry the Atari 800 and refer to
it as the "Timeless" computer.

Several other major distributors are also lined up by TI in the closing
months of 1979. They begin advertising the 99/4, but fail to receive
them and are forced to placate the few people who are willing to pay
$1150 for the machine. TI has already gotten off on the wrong foot with
their retailers.

- Rodnay Zaks, who would author the book "Your First TI-99/4A Program"
in 1983, releases "6502 Games" through Sybex Publishing.

NOV 1979: Moore Business Systems agrees to market the TI-99/7, a $5000
business computer based upon the TMS 9900 microprocessor. The 99/7 is
one of three computers to be built on the TMS 9900 chip, but it will
eventually die, due to internal squabbling at TI, without any
production units being shipped.

- Computer Shopper publishes its first issue. A special charter
subscription of 12 issues for $10 is offered.

- Milton Bradley releases Big Trak, a programmable toy vehicle. The
chip in Big Trak allows the user to program intricate travel paths and
fire the truck's weaponry in single burst, short burst or long burst
modes. It sells for $43 with trailers that may be purchased separately
for $13 each.

- Milton Bradley also releases its Microvision hand held mini video
game machine, which has its own screen. Microvision comes with the
game BlockBuster. Six other games, Bowling, Star Trek, Phaser Strike,
Connect Four, Vegas Slots and Mindbuster are also available, sold
separately.

DEC 1979: Len Buckwalter reviews the new TI-99/4 Home Computer for
Mechanics Illustrated magazine on page 46. He calls the machine easy to
use and delivers a generally positive review, discussing Home Financial
Decisions, and Milton Bradley's Connect Four, Hangman, Yahtzee and Zero
Zap cartridges.